There were many who doubted that the WSL would be able to get through the entire 2021 Championship Tour season, and there’s no doubt that the logistical challenges presented throughout the year were a significant hurdle. Never was that more evident than over this past week, when the last event of the regular season was cancelled. But alas, eight months after our surfers paddled out into Hawaiian waters to kick off the season at Pipeline, the final rankings have been decided, and the five men and five women who will compete in the first ever WSL Finals event have been decided.
Both the men’s and the women’s event will be held on one day at Trestles, and will follow the same format. In every heat, the loser will be eliminated from the event, with the exception of the two finals (known as the Title Matches), which will be best-of-three. Each side of the draw will begin with the surfer who finished 5th facing off against the 4th-ranked finisher, with the winner going on to face 3rd in what will be known as Match 2. That winner will go on to face 2nd in Match 3, before the winner of Match 3 heads into the best-of-three Title Match to determine the world champion. We’ll go into a more detailed preview of the event closer to the date (the window runs from the 9th to the 17th of September) but for now, here’s a quick rundown of who made it there, and who will compete against who.
The Women
There are no great surprises in terms of the women who made it into the top five. Caroline Marks and Tyler Wright, who finished sixth and seventh respectively, are the most notable omissions, but between Carissa Moore, Tatiana Weston-Webb, Sally Fitzgibbons, Steph Gilmore and Johanne Defay, there is a huge amount of talent. Three of them will be competing for their first ever world title, while Moore will be on the hunt for a fifth and Gilmore a record-breaking eighth.
Having finished in a tie for fourth place, Defay and Gilmore will kick off proceedings, with the winner of that matchup going on to face-off against Sally Fitzgibbons in Match 2. The loser of Match 2 will be sent packing, with the victor’s reward a clash against Tatiana Weston-Webb, who finished second. Waiting for that winner, of course, is Tyler Wright, who finished no lower than third place in any contest throughout the entire season and rightly ended the year on top of the table as a result.
She’ll have been sitting on the beach watching all day, and a case can certainly be made that that will be a disadvantage – in fact it’s one of the major drawbacks of this format. But that’s where the best-of-three Title Match comes in. Rather than having to paddle straight out and beat someone who’s already had a heat or two in the water in one 30-minute heat, Wright will get three bites at the cherry, giving her scope to win the title even if she goes down in the first heat.
The Men
The top three surfers at the end of the season on the men’s side were, in a similar vein to the women, reasonably predictable, with the Brazilian trio of Gabriel Medina, Italo Ferreira and Filipe Toledo occupying those spots in that order. The two who will join them at Trestles, however, are a bit more of a surprise.
Conner Coffin snuck into the top five at the last possible moment, knocking out Griffin Colapinto and jumping up into fourth spot at the most recent event at Barra de la Cruz. Coffin is a beautiful surfer to watch but hasn’t always excelled in competition, and his 7th place finish in 2018 is the only time prior to this season that he has finished in the top 15, so to jump into 4th this year is a major improvement. Even more surprising is the man who ended up in the spot below him, Morgan Cibilic. The boy from Angourie had never competed on the Championship Tour before this year, but has made an immediate impact and is being touted as the next big thing in Australian, and more broadly global, surfing.
There’s no doubt that these two will be at long odds to break through the aforementioned band of Brazilians, and they’ll kick off proceedings in an intriguing first round matchup at Trestles. The winner will be greeted by Toledo in Match 2, not exactly an enticing reward for effort, while the winner of that matchup will face up against Ferreira, the reigning world champion.
The toughest competitor of all will be waiting for the man who gets through those rounds. Medina already has two world titles to his name and at just 27 years of age is primed to add more, and beating him two times out of three heats will be extremely tough, even if he will have been sitting on the beach waiting to compete all day.
The WSL Finals at Trestles will be the first of their kind, and though it’s already been confirmed that it will be here to stay until at least 2023, how well it’s received over these next three years will likely play a significant role in whether it continues to be a part of the tour thereafter. Some might think it’s a gimmick, others will bemoan that the best surfer throughout the year won’t necessarily win, but regardless, there will no doubt be plenty of eyes on Trestles once the event gets the green light.
